The large Enron signs outside the company's old headquarters have been auctioned off, nearly 6,000 lost their jobs and retirement savings, and $68 billion in deceptive market value has been erased. And yet, this sad saga is far from over.
A new chapter in the Enron story opened yesterday with the first jailing of a former company executive --treasurer Ben Glisan Jr., 37 -- for his part in inflating the energy-trading firm's income. When the gavel fell, Glisan was sentenced to the maximum five-year jail term, three years of supervised release, ordered to forfeit $1.3 million in ill-gotten gains, and is denied officer or director roles in the future. The charge: defrauding investors.
Glisan avoided nearly two dozen additional charges by entering a plea. He admitted for the first time that he -- along with other unnamed executives -- knowingly manipulated the company's financial results in complex (read: illogical and illegal) accounting exchanges internally named "Raptor."
Using convoluted math, Raptor accounting added as much as $1 billion in fictional income to Enron's bottom line. Yet, yesterday was the first time an Enron executive admitted intentional malfeasance with Raptor, rather than just claiming ignorance or trying to invoke the "Whoops, we made a mistake" excuse.
The Justice Department has filed charges against 19 other Enron executives, including former CFO Andrew Fastow, but not former CEOs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. However, the government appears intent on landing these big fish if at all possible -- and not only at Enron, but among other corporate scandals.
Former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers may have trouble sleeping tonight.
